FILTER REISSUES
Get down and get right
The 50th anniversary celebration of the all-day revue at LA’s Memorial Coliseum in 1972 demonstrates the breadth of Stax’s R&B purism. By David Fricke.
Various
★★★★
Wattstax ’72: The Complete Concert
STAX/CRAFT RECORDINGS. CD/DL/LP
ON AUGUST 11, 1965, the black community of Watts in south Los Angeles went up in rage and flames when an all-too-common incident on those streets – police officers physically restraining a young man under arrest – exploded into six days of rioting and harsh, military response. A year later, local activist Tommy Jacquette founded the Watts Summer Festival, a commemorative celebration of black arts, unity and rebuilding that is still held annually.
“There’s a lot of black power in every sense and edition of Wattstax.”
One summer, though, the party got too big for the ’hood. Held on August 20, 1972, Wattstax was an all-day R&B revue held at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a 100,000-capacity concrete bowl usually reserved for football. Produced by Stax Records, the bill was packed with the Memphis label’s stars and hopefuls – among the former, the Black Moses, Isaac Hayes; the Staple Singers; and black-rock tsunami the Bar-Kays. William Bell, blues guitarist Albert King, Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla represented the company’s first, golden age in the 1960s. Admission was a dollar; proceeds went to charity. Wattstax, in turn, reaped a Woodstock-size bounty (the alliteration was no accident): a concert documentary and two double-LP soundtracks.